Saturday, 3 March 2007

I was taking some photos of a white vase using this small light I have (I will post the photos of the white vase very soon) After I had taken these photographs, some kind of overwhelming divine power took over my thoughts telling me I should photograph the bulb itself, so in answer to this I photographed it, funnily enough. This is the message I received from god "Lewis, I see the future, there’s abstract potential in this bulb, its up to you to capture it" now imagine that in a deep powerful voice....... so Anyway lol, I set my camera to f/8 (aperture) a small hole in lens because obviously there was a lot of light. Combining f/8 with a very fast shutter speed meant I could capture the filament inside a bulb without too much light burning the picture out. Now as you see above the original is on the top left, this is a reasonably interesting photo in itself, but it is by no means what I would call abstract, after all I do want to try and capture unrecognizable images, and it’s far too obvious it’s a bulb. I was interested in the filaments inside the bulb, so I got into Photoshop and straightaway used the crop tool and cropped out just the middle bit. I then reduced the brightness levels slightly and added lots of contrast of it, which meant the light stood out against a black background, as you can see. I was instantly happy with this, I wanted to do more to it and just see what I could create in Photoshop. I used the motion blur tool as you can see; I then used the colour gradient tool on the photograph. I did usual brightness and contrast tweaks until I simply thought it looked best, I believe art is about personal feel and you do what you personally think looks right. You release the shutter on a camera when you think every element of the photo looks correct, there’s this bloody great quote by Ernst Haas which I think is so right, nice one Ernst mate, that’s right on money. Here it is, you ready?

"My theory of composition? Simple: do not release the shutter until everything in the viewfinder feels just right"

I love that, its almost implying not to follow any golden rules, just do what you think is right, that’s what I do.

So back to the photo. I was rather pleased with the results of this edit, why? well its definitely abstract, I don't think any passer-by would instantly say well that’s a bulb, everyone who reads this now knows what it is though (dammit lol). I'm really not interested in actual subject matter I use; I’m more interested in creating ascetically pleasing abstract photographs. This image again kinda looks like a painting, it’s got a painterly effect to it. Bottom right, is a slightly different edit, I have applied a splatter effect, again giving it a painterly effect.